Sharpe’s Tiger

Suggested by Kung Fu Zu • Sharpe, born to a whore, is a violent, crude, illiterate young man. He is also brave, clever, strong, and lucky. Sharpe, along with young Arthur Wellesley, are in India to fight the Tippoo of Mysore, a powerful Muslim ruler in South India.Buy at Amazon • Suggest a book • (285 views)

I have found that most of my reading is genre fiction. Not the tale of ordinary life today (though I do read contemporary mysteries and thrillers, those are hardly ordinary life), but just about anything else.

I know Wellesley defeated Mysore, though they allowed it to remain as a kingdom all the way to the end (albeit a puppet state). Eventuallly India went purely republican and got rid of all the monarchies making up provinces of India.

Very impressive. Princes can do that — and decades or centuries later, tourists will appreciate it, though it might require a lot of walking. I recall that one of Wellesley’s early victories was at Seringapatam.

It would seem Wellesley did not play a huge role in the campaign and in fact was bettered in a night attack against the Mysore troops.

According to Cornwell’s “Historical Note”, Wellesley had an aversion to night engagements from that time.

Things got better for Wellesley as he fought many battles in India. He once expressed his opinion that one of these, the Battle of Assaye which took place during the Second Anglo-Maratha War, was his best fought victory. An interesting remark for the victor of Waterloo.

Well, Waterloo owed a lot to Blücher, though Wellington was able to hold Boney off throughout the battle. (It helps that Ney was never quite the same after his rearguard command during the retreat from Moscow.) He also had a lot of other very notable victories in Iberia, of which Salamanca may have been the best.

I’m to the point in this book (very early on) that the British coalition of troops have just defeated the ground forces of Tippo. The aftermath of the looting is underway and the next step will be the siege.

Kudos to the author for getting right into it without 50 pages of boring setup. This is well written. But it’s pretty violent and gritty. I’m not sure this is making for good before-bedtime reading. Maybe better to read in the middle of the day on a rainy Saturday.

Some thoughts occur:

I don’t know how much this book is based on actual events, but it seems believable that Tippoo (or someone like him) made obvious mistakes militarily. In this one, the French (French!) advisor to Tippe Tippoo and Mysore Too advises Tippoo to use his calvary to force the British into defensive squares, thereby denuding their firepower by three-quarters. This was not done. One volley from the british infantrymen basically effectively destroyed the opposition and sent them running.

One wonders if the secret of Napoleon (and I have read next to nothing on him) was that he did not feel compelled to abide by the “gentlemanly” methods of war at the time — lining up in tight formation and just blasting away. Certainly we hear what a shocker it was for the British that the Americans would hide behind trees and shoot as the assembled Redcoats walking in tight formation. (I think Washington did that too to some degree as well.)

Today’s modern soldier shares the same ancient risks of death or dismemberment. But today’s modern soldier can generally return to his barracks and play video games. He has a wife safe at home. The soldiers in the British Army had it worse than criminals….except, it seems, for the right for legally looting. Of course, many of the soldiers were conscripted criminals.

And apparently there was a lottery in regards to who could bring their wives. This was important if only because the wives who were left behind often had to turn to prostitution as their only means of support. I’m not sure how widespread that was, but it is presented as a clear and present danger to the wives left behind.

Yikes. I would not want to be a British common soldier. Officers, on the other hand, had it much better. And one wonders how the British could ever have assembled an effective force when you could basically purchase an officer’s position.

France and Britain were the main imperial rivals in India, so that they provided advice for Indian states fighting their rival. In the French case, it doesn’t seem to have been very good advice — one of those they helped was the Nawab of Bengal (of Black Hole of Calcutta infamy — I remember MAD Magazine doing an article in which a newspaper’s social reporter wrote it up as a party, listing (fictitiously) the prisoners and concluding with “No refreshments were served”) when he faced Clive at Plessey.

An army needed women as camp followers to perform women’s chores, such as cooking, sewing, and laundry. I don’t think they conscripted prisoners; at least with the navy, the practice was to give them the choice between imprisonment and enlistment. Of course, a certain amount of shanghaiing occurred. I can remember Hornblower’s efforts to crew the Sutherland in Ship of the Line. Service in either the army or the navy was very unpleasant. (When somebody brought up naval tradition with Churchill, he replied that their traditions were “rum, sodomy, and the lash”.)

I was surprised when the book mentioned that there was something like 100,000 cattle following the army, which I think included (or perhaps it didn’t) the oxen used to pull the guns. It mentioned that one of the biggest guns alone required 60 oxen or more.

Yes, I remember how unpleasant life was aboard one of Her Majesties ships. Yikes. But then it might have been worse back home and this was a chance for adventure and at least getting out of the slums (or avoiding a long sentence inside some dingy prison).

As usual, it sounds as if Churchill understood things, although sodomy is certainly not a subject I’ve run across in any of my nautical reading. But, well, I supposed it happened. Must have been interesting being a cabin boy of that period.

sodomy is certainly not a subject I’ve run across in any of my nautical reading.

I can’t do it justice in writing, but you’ve never heard the old approach, “Hello Sailor?” It is an old homosexual joke.

I would say, many of the sailors serving in the old British Navy were impressed, i.e. grabbed by British authorities from pubs and such places, for service. It wasn’t voluntary. This practice was one of the reasons we got into the War of 1812 with Britain. Their war ships would stop American vessels and claim sailors were deserters from the British Navy and taken them from American vessels. The Brits needed the sailors. Don’t forget, this is going on during the Napoleonic wars.

And one wonders how the British could ever have assembled an effective force when you could basically purchase an officer’s position.

This was common throughout Europe. The French system changed because of the Revolution, but other European countries maintained the system for some time.

There is also the story of sailors offering to show newbies the golden spike that held the ship together. Actually, of course, the spike would generally be a shade of peach, and was probably a real pain in the arse.

Many of the cattle with the army would be for supply — to be eaten. This custom went for a long time, and the results could be interesting on occasion. (In the fall of 1864, the Confederates launched a cavalry raid that made off with thousands of US cattle. You can imagine how much the hungry troops appreciated it.) But bullocks were also used for transport.

Yes, I imagine a lot of prisoners and slum-dwellers thought an army or navy career might be a better prospect. That may be why you got a lot of desertion, and the occasional mutiny (most notably the Spithead and Nore mutinies about the time of this campaign).

I would say, many of the sailors serving in the old British Navy were impressed, i.e. grabbed by British authorities from pubs and such places, for service. It wasn’t voluntary.
I am sure this is well known but I found it an interesting feature of this scouting method. I was told many years ago, that the idea of “keep your elbows off the table”, comes from this practice. It seems that those “recruiters” would look for this trait as evidence of sailing experience. While eating, sailors need to keep their plates in place with their elbows. So young men that could not or did not keep their elbows off the table, were likely to get snatched up, not that it was uncouth or un-dignified.

lining up in tight formation and just blasting away. Certainly we hear what a shocker it was for the British that the Americans would hide behind trees and shoot as the assembled Redcoats walking in tight formation.

The tight formation was developed before muskets had much accuracy and bayonets were much used. A concentrates body of men raging down on you with bayonets was very effective and won many a battle.

Americans, being hunters, were on the edge of technology. They used much better guns than the British. Rifling was more common among the Americans than among the British. Thus Americans could more accurately shoot their enemies.

One wonders if the secret of Napoleon (and I have read next to nothing on him) was that he did not feel compelled to abide by the “gentlemanly” methods of war

Napoleon’s secret was the use of massed artillery. One should also not forget that he was not an aristocrat so his idea of war was different from that of a General Howe or Cornwallis.

Boney also usually outmaneuvered his enemies. This was helped by the French revolutionary armies developing a faster march step, in fact close to twice as fast. It came in handy in many battles, on the offensive (where it enabled him to win by outflanking the enemy) and the defensive (as David Chandler in The Campaigns of Napoleon pointed out of Davout’s victory at Auerstädt). Later, especially as the armies got bigger, Napoleon began to rely more on direct attacks, which came at a very high price (e.g., Eylau, Wagram, and Borodino).

And one wonders how the British could ever have assembled an effective force when you could basically purchase an officer’s position.

For all the bad and about the British class system. It seems they consistently produced exceptional officers when they needed them most. The system also produced a large number of NCOs who trained junior officers. Not only was this, and is this true of the army, but also the navy. Patriotism, plays a large part then and now.

I’m thinking the best example is the battle of Rorke’s drift. Eleven VC for one engagement of a company of 120, vs 3 Zulu regiments, about 3000. The commanding officer John Chard was an engineer lieutenant and the other officer was a newly minted officer who got his commission with family connections. With the exception of Commissary Dalton the other 7 VC were award to privates and corporals. Four others received distinguished conduct medals. The highest ranking being Color Sargent Bourne.

Training, discipline and patriotism only go so far to explain why they weren’t wiped out by the Zulu. Victor Davis Hanson says that on that day, in that place these were the 120 most dangerous men on the planet, perhaps that explains something about it.

For the better part of 3 centuries England managed to rule an Empire quite unlike any other in history. I guess they were born to empire, and had the good manners to give it up when WW II was over.

Of course, Chard as an engineer was probably chosen on merit. In the superb movie Zulu, Bromhead is unhappy that he’s outranked by someone who isn’t a professional with a long military history like his. George MacDonald Fraser, discussing the movie in his superb Hollywood History of the World, was amused by this, since Chard actually was well trained.

The movie shows some resentment of Chard by Bromhead, which isn’t supported by the historical evidence, but led to a nice scene. Bromhead points out to Chard the people using mealie bags for breastworks, and says, “Thought of that, old boy.” I could imagine something like that happening no matter how they got along.

I suppose the color sergeant is the one you see throughout Zulu. Many viewers were disappointed that he didn’t get a VC (Richard Burton, narrating the beginning and ending, named all 11).

I don’t either, but a quick check on wikipedia gives the name as Nigel Green. Caine played Bromhead, but actually would have preferred Private Hook. (According to wikipedia Hook was actually a model soldier, and his descendants were MOST unhappy about his portrayal in the movie — even though they do show the heroics that earned him his VC.) Burton’s ending narration showed how remarkable the number of VCs was for such a small engagement. (And they could only be given to survivors. I don’t suppose there were too many for Isandhlwana.)

I finally got around to watching this British TV movie from 1993, Sharpe’s Rifles.

I thought the first two-fifths of it or so was pretty good. Sharpe saves the life of Wellesley (the future Lord Wellington). Wellesley promotes this enlisted soldier to an officer thus causing more than a few problems for Sharpe. Officers are one thing, enlisted men are another, and never shall the line be crossed or blurred.

This is all good, merry, military fun until the plot devolves (and the budget already obviously having been busted) into low-rent TV movie drama. Why is Brian Cox following them around? Who knows? Why is the guy that Sharpe has been charged with finding dressed as a woman when he so obviously looks like a man dressed as a women? Who knows?

Why would anyone think the insertion of the Spanish general with his “I am woman, hear me roar” cohort, both carrying some secret box, would be anything but an interruption of the story? Who knows? By the time we get to the end, learn what is in the box and what it is for, we don’t care. The drama turns into the kind of parched, stiff, play-acted stuff more suitable for a Dr. Who episode.

Sean Bean gives a fine performance throughout which is the one and only reason to watch this. Unfortunately the dynamic of an enlisted man becoming an officer (and all the problems this entails) is bled off when they start down the road to this stupid plot element of protecting the Spanish general’s treasure box.

We are given no wider perspective on what Wellesley and the British are up to. They just seem to walk around in uniform once in a while. Daragh O’Malley is suitably mutinous and nasty as the enlisted soldier who does not accept Sharpe’s authority. (Wouldn’t this guy have been immediately shot?) But Sharpe, being a man’s man, wins him over which (unfortunately) was never in doubt. And the winning over is accomplished in a slap-dash way, hardly making this a dramatic or satisfying moment.

This is a TV movie, after all, and it’s a very safe guess that the books are better. And if you want to convince me that any of these men are sharp-shooters, perhaps they should hold their rifles steady first (presumably braced on something) before firing them. There seemed to be very little technical expertise in this movie. Never for a moment did this look like a crack unit of sharp-shooters.

I checked wikipedia (I’m sure that doesn’t surprise you), and there are indeed a lot of differences ‘twixt book and TV show. The opening scene with Wellesley is from an earlier book, and the whole matter of banker James Rothschild (the man in disguise) is added for the show. In the novel, the events take place on the retreat to Corunna. (The commander then was Sir John Moore, who would be killed in the final defense of Corunna as his army prepared to escape to the transports. Wellesley wasn’t even present on that command, due to the repercussions of an event he had no control over.) I get the impression that the Spanish guerrillas’ mission was the main point instead of a side-plot. Teresa, the woman, will play a very important role in the future — as Sharpe’s eventual wife.

One review I read also noted that several differences, including that the chick was from another story and was 11 years younger.

I get the impression that the Spanish guerrillas’ mission was the main point instead of a side-plot.

That’s probably my beef, misogynist that I am. This movie was going along nicely. But then what should have been a mere subplot became the plot. And it didn’t fit nor was it interesting. Nor did the chick in any way work as a love interest.

Sharpe had been sent by Wellesley to find the missing banker (a Rothschild) who had money for the army payroll. (They were already two months behind.) There were all kinds of possibilities to develop this. But then they went down this cul-de-sac of a plot point about some Spanish guy who is going to rally the entire country by raising a flag in a certain place. And it just didn’t work. For starters, the Spanish guy hardly seemed the rebel type. And the woman with him was obviously just a Xena character inserted to complete a demographic requirement. (I like Xena the Warrior Princess, by the way. If you’re going to do ass-kicking-female, do it right. They mostly did in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way.)

But remember first and foremost this thing was titled “Sharpe’s Rifles.” Yeah, they shot some Frenchies here and there. But never did you get the impression this was a crack group of anything other than loafers and complainers. Sean Bean was on one level in this and almost everything else was a level or two down. Professional actors have to wade their way through lots of crap in their careers. And I think when you’re filming this stuff in pieces, and certainly not in order, you might not know beforehand if it’s crap or not.

This show needed some realism and grit. And every battle scene was like a low-budget fight right out of Batman the TV series. In Batman, it was meant to be tongue-in-cheek and hardly realistic.

Anyway, I still have “Sharpe’s Tiger” in hand and I’ll try to pick that up again soon.

I think there should be no surprise that most books from which movies are adapted, are much better than the movies.

Movies are a collective effort which are restrained by money and reality, and these tend to push those responsible into cutting corners.

In the case of the Sharpe movie series, I believe it was, from the beginning, to be a low budget project. It is therefore not surprising that the films are uneven.

The reason I prefer books is that books are the product of a unitary concept and creator, the author, who has control over his product. He is not restrained by reality but by his imagination. He is not restrained by many other contributors as it is he who conceives and carries out his project and the end result is very much dependent upon his talent and the amount of effort he puts into the writing.

Editors play a part, but if a writer is talented and hard working, editors are no where near as influential as a film director is in making a movie.

Sean Bean is great, as are the photography, locations and costumes. However, the plot is somewhat muddled, and the conclusion flat. The plot has been SUBSTANTIALLY altered from Cornwell’s novel, and not to the better. Unfortunately, this adventure is much better read than watched. Sharpe was too narrowly drawn here, in contrast with his literary alter ego, who seems more intelligent and determined despite his apprehension in his new role as an officer promoted from the ranks. I really enjoyed the brief scene in which Sharpe is tripped by a “real” officer, and after a quick pause and piercing stare, pushes the surprised and cowed officer right back. It sets the tone for his later trials as a commanding officer.

Preferring books to the often half-assed movies made of them makes sense. But we can always cut such movies some slack because you just can’t include everything. But this TV movie doesn’t fail because of the difference between the mediums and the trade-offs involved. It fails because it was a piece of unartistic made-for-TV junk, although early-on it showed some promise. I do like that scene where the asshole officer trips Sharpe as he’s going in to see Wellington. Sharpe pushes right back. Loved it. But then the brought in the Spaniard and Xena and it became of piece of junk. Brian Cox’s character was also completely superfluous. If I’m direct that my guiding influence is “Let Bean be Bean” (or let Sharpe be Sharpe). They didn’t. Anytime anything bold, brave, sharp, or daring threatened to occur, it would be pulled down by the mediocrity of the other characters and plots.

And probably what hurt greatly was the lack of a good villain. The turncoat Spanish guy just didn’t cut it. And as brutal as the French were portrayed, you never really get a sense of the French soldier as a real thing. It was all lazy pastiches and stereotypes.

KFZ makes a very interesting point about why books are generally better than the movies made on them.

Note, again, that Sir Arthur Wellesley wasn’t in this campaign at all, though in the TV show they didn’t say what was going on. He wouldn’t have been Wellington yet (he was ennobled after Talavera in 1809), though I suppose they also didn’t state when this happened either.

Incidentally, for good kick-ass female characters you probably can’t beat James Schmitz. My favorite of his books is The Demon Breed, in which a woman named Nile Etland has to stop an alien invasion. But the Telzey Amberdon stories (the adventures of an esper) are also quite good.

KFZ makes a very interesting point about why books are generally better than the movies made on them.

No doubt the more committee-like nature of movie or TV production allows all kinds of bad influences to leak in. From what I understand, the suits who direct these things are complete tasteless morons and slobs. It’s often a wonder anything of quality ever gets done.

Never heard of the The Demon Breed or that particular kiss-ass female. One of the realities of Netflix (and cinema in general) is that now there has to be a female character. And so now watching movies isn’t so much about watching stories. It’s about watching the multicultural bean counters tick off their racial and sexual quotas.

The Demon Breed came out around 1959, when such female characters were most unusual. It has also been noted that they tended to have sexually ambiguous names such as Nile and Telzey. Nile’s male mentor also plays a significant role in the story; indeed, she shows up initially to check up on him.

I was hoping to find the name of Nile’s mentor, but it doesn’t seem to be available on wikipedia. I did find out that I was a decade off on the book’s appearance; The Demon Breed came out in 1968. But that’s still at the beginning of the feminist movement, and many of Schmitz’s stories go back to the late 1940s, and they already relied on female heroes even back then. Of course, many men appreciate strong women (think of Clint Eastwood and Tyne Daly in The Enforcer).

But this TV movie doesn’t fail because of the difference between the mediums and the trade-offs involved. It fails because it was a piece of unartistic made-for-TV junk,

And how is that different from most of the other rubbish we seen on the boob-tube?

For the reasons I previously enumerated, and because the medium of film is very passive, thus requires little effort on the part of its consumers to consume or “participate” in, I still maintain the end product will, because of the flaws inherent in its creation, be generally a poor quality product.

Read the reviews at IMDB. Either most people have crappy taste or this TV movie was a gem. But then that is typical these days. I don’t know that many people have an eye for quality. They just consume, consume, consume.

Of course, many men appreciate strong women (think of Clint Eastwood and Tyne Daly in The Enforcer).

Timothy, I think Tyne Daly straddles the line. I see her as mostly a feminist insertion.

Let me, with more thought, try to make the distinction. I’m not against a strong female. Lord knows this country was founded by many of them, enduring hardships that would make most pussy-hat females run for their safe spaces. Whether on frontier farms or over-crowded settlement cities, we would not have survived — let alone reproduced, been fed, and clothed — without strong females.

Where I think the distinction lies is not in “strong” but whether some females in cinema are presented as replacement males. This is, of course, a judgment call and a judgment all but impossible for those indoctrinated in feminism to make. But I would say that Sarah Conner (played by Linda Hamilton) was, generally speaking, a strong female who was not a replacement male.

A replacement male tends to suck all competing masculinity out of the movie. There is no place for a real man when a replacement female is playing the role of a man. Such replacement males tend to be humorless. Tyne Daly’s character was sympathetic if only because they didn’t play down the fact that she was clearly over her head. Nor was she a humorless ball-buster like so many replacement male characters. She could, to a large extent (but clearly within the feminist affirmative action framework), be accepted as a real person. And, at the end of the day, she was judged by the demands of the job and heroism, not as a substitute man.

Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) is another excellent example of a strong woman who is not a substitute man. She does not suck all the male oxygen out of the room. (There is still the wonderful character of Hicks.) She is not a humorless ball-buster. And she is still recognizably female. In fact, in “Aliens” her conduct would be verboten by today’s replacement-male agenda because Ripley goes after the monster as motivated by purely female protective instincts.

This movie even has the courage to have some humor regarding the idea of a replacement female. There’s some good dialogue between Vasquez and Hudson where Hudson asks the masculine-looking Vasquez: “Hey, Vasquez. Have you ever been mistaken for a man?” She answers, “No. Have you?”

Playful. Funny. And very likely the kind of back-and-forth you might expect from Marines in space. One of the worst examples of the ass-kicking-female remains Keira Knightly in a movie I otherwise like: “King Arthur.” But there she’s less a replacement male and more of simply the rejection of being a female. In this movie, feminism hasn’t advanced to the point where males are verboten. But women are not allowed to just be women. In this one, after having spent days or weeks in a dank cellar as a prisoner, she is able to take on full-sized, full-armored men with her ass-kicking Ninja moves. That was, and remains, the nearly perfect stereotype of the ass-kicking female.

But replacement males now abound, particularly in commercials. Every man is usually a goofball and the woman is strong, smart, and…well…she’s the alpha male.

Actually, I noticed that type of commercial many decades ago, probably back in the 1970s. I suspect that this reflects the fact that the feminist movement had become active as an influence on women (though less than New York advertising firms thought, naturally), and women were usually the shoppers that advertisers targeted.

You also still had the usual housewife ads, such as one memorable one that involved two women discussing their laundry or some such. What made it so memorable was a boy coming in to say, “Mommy, mommy, I only had one cavity!” One of the women turned to him, and said, “Well, who asked you?” At the closing, you didn’t see them, but you heard, “My kid? I thought he was your kid.”

Those were some fine kick-ass women you list, and I liked them all. Note that Alien also has Lambert, who panics when she and Parker encounter the alien on their way to the shuttle, leading to both of their deaths. Parker and Dallas were both effective men in their ways, even though the alien gets both of them.

Daly’s character works out very well in The Enforcer by your standard. She certainly doesn’t eliminate Dirty Harry’s masculinity, and it takes her time to get used to the life of a street cop. But she adjusts, and earns the respect of her partner before being killed in the final confrontation with the radicals.

Note that Dirty Harry’s primary partners in the first 3 movies were a Mexican-American, a black, and a woman. All proved to be worthy partners, though 2 ended up dead and the other resigned after being wounded. And another sometimes partner, “Fat Man” DiGiorgio, is killed early in The Enforcer.

It was a great piece of pro-female propaganda. A woman enters the man’s world. Man is doubtful. Woman proves that she can do the job just as well.

Sometimes. But the scheme of “equality” demands that we say things are equal whether they are or not. The political goal becomes a social necessity and mere truth becomes revolutionary and certainly offensive to most.

I was at a Little League game on Saturday. There is a girl on the team. She got a hit, and a rather solid one. Other than that, as catcher, she consistently could not throw the ball to second base. Not even close. And she stopped running to first base on an infield hit that was booted. She might easily have been safe.

After the game, the umpire (I thought the coaches did this, but the coach said the umpire did) handed out two game balls to the team. One is the usual. One of them, of course, went to the girl.

Is it wrong to encourage women? Yes, if it’s at the expense of someone else because then you’re just asking everyone to change the standard from baseball skill to gender superficiality. Granted, there are plenty of boys who don’t run hard to first base. But most don’t get game balls just for showing up.

Also, I’d ever ever seen a pitcher make such a loud apology to a player for accidentally hitting them (hitting her, in this case). Inserting women into a men’s game is fine. But then it’s no longer the same game. I’m glad people aren’t shunning her or saying rude things. But on the other hand, false or exaggerated positivity I find to be just as annoying. But I’m certainly in the minority on this.

Lowering standards for women can be a serious problem. This is why I was always dubious about women in combat. Some will genuinely qualify, but not enough to satisfy the femocrats and the pussy-whipped officers (especially in the Navy, as far as I can tell) who seek to appease them. And since they don’t want to admit they’re lowering standards for women, they end up lowering them for everyone — equality, yes, but then there was a reason those standards were there.

Good idea. I don’t think using a tank would be permitted under the Marquess of Queensberry rules. In a Captain Kentucky story in which CK challenges Muhammad Ali to a fight, the latter points out that superpowers would violate the rules. (“But the Marquess of Queensberry states what is right. No artificial powers can be used in this fight.”)

I read a little more of the book last night. It was an interesting part where a British officer meets clandestinely with an old Hindu officer/friend of his from earlier times. The Hindu is pressed into service for the Muslim leader that the British are fighting. I forget all the names at the moment.

The Hindu guy must choose between serving the British and serving the hated Muslims. And it’s pretty obvious to almost any Hindu that the better choice is the British. But that is certainly not an ideal situation. So this Hindu gives what seems to be intelligence on the fort or castle that the Muslim leader is walled up behind. There’s no inkling that the Hindu is setting up the British, and seems unlikely, but anything is possible at this point.

I wonder if the British in the long run did India a service just to put a damper on the Muslims who ruin any country they gain power in.

Last night I watched Sharpe’s Eagle via a new streaming service I’m testing out. (More on that later and elsewhere.) There are sixteen episodes available which includes 5 seasons and a couple specials (the last being 2008’s “Sharpe’s Peril”).

“Sharpe’s Eagle” is a marked improvement over “Sharpe’s Rifles” (the very first episode). One wonders how the British army ever got on with so much dissent and so many villainous characters in its ranks. Sharpe runs into the Simmerson clan, led by Sir Henry Simmerson, leader of the South Essex Regiment, a regiment that Simmerson enjoys brutalizing. As will likely be the case in every episode, Sir Simmerson is the designated villain who “just doesn’t like his kind.”

The only thing keeping Sharpe going is the support of Hogan who is technically a Royals Engineer officer but seems to act more like an aide de camp to (now) Lord Wellington. (Did he really have a snoz like this? It’s made rather prominent on David Troughton who plays Wellesley/Wellington in this series. Perhaps the artist was being kind.)

They weave in a love interest for Sharpe which at least, this time, has some reason for being. Sharpe comes to the aid of several ladies who are ill-used by some British officers. He shows his pure sense of honor and decency as opposed to what passes for such a thing amongst “gentlemen.” Sharpe does eventually make a few friends including an officer who is a former Southerner and joined the British and fought against Washington.

In this second episode, Sergeant Major Harper is now thoroughly on Sharpe’s side. No longer the villain, they have a proper one in Simmerson and his allies. (Simmerson, unfortunately, may be a recurring character which I can see getting old very fast.) And instead of what I thought was a horrible waste of good actors on the plot of raising a Spanish flag to supposedly rally the troops, Sharpe is involved in a proper battle with the French forces. We see scenes of him whipping the Essex Regiment into shape and preparing them to face Napoleon. This is as good as it has gotten so far in this series.

Budget constraints obviously keep this in the province of “TV movie.” Via Hogan, Sharpe joins up with Simmerson’s South Essex Regiment which is tasked with capturing a bridge and blowing it up if necessary. At best you get “battlefield reenactment” type of action, but its sufficient for the purposes of telling the story. One reviewer said that this episode is the best of the series, so this might be a somewhat momentary blip. But it’s a good one. I hope they can maintain this level of quality.

One person who has no problem with quality is Sean Bean. This is quite honestly (compared to the standard that exists today) an Oscar-level performance by him in this one. Along with Brian Cox (as Hogan) and David Troughton (as Wellington), there is a steady level of gravitas brought to the production despite its often rough edges and slight budget. Michael Cochrane (as Simmerson) is quite good in his role of villain as well, a crucial component. One reviewer writes:

But a hero is only ever as good as his enemies are bad and Sharpe’s Eagle has two of the most detestable oafs to ever crop up in the series. With the French army a distant threat, his main encounters come with authority figures and rival officers, in this case Michael Cochrane’s inept Colonel Simmerson and Daniel Craig’s Lt. Berry. Simmerson is a snarling, beast of a man, addicted to scarification and with a stubborn belief that flogging and corporal punishment will keep his men in line. Craig on the other hand is delightfully slimy as an upper class villain with a penchant for abusing women, a cool headed and calculating evil to Simmerson’s over the top cad.

If this appeared on TV, then it would be an Emmy-level, not Oscar-level, performance.

Simmerson would have gotten his position through purchase, of course, and a lot of those officers would be poor quality. Then they might get promoted later to a general’s rank if they weren’t too obviously unqualified. Cecil Woodham-Smith focused the early part of The Reason Why (about the Charge of the Light Brigade) on how this worked with the Earl of Cardigan and the Earl of Lucan (though neither was really at fault for the charge, especially Cardigan, who certainly knew what was going to happen — he predicted that “the last of the Brudenells” would die, though in fact he didn’t — and protested). As the British went to the Crimea, Lucan commanded the cavalry division (the Light Brigade and the Heavy Brigade), and Cardigan the Light Brigade. But neither can hold a candle for incompetence to Lord Elphinstone in the 1842 retreat from Kabul.

Simmerson did get his position through purchase and it was mentioned in this episode. Simmerson also demonstrated military incompetence. He lost the colors! A dying wish by an officer caught in Simmerson’s debacle (one of the few honorable officers in the South Essex Regiment) was for Sharpe to secure one of the French eagle standards.

In the HBO series, “Rome,” the losing of one of Caesar’s eagle standards was a central plot point in that series — at least in regards to bringing Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo to the notice of Caesar himself.

They take this thing very seriously. Hogan advised Sir Henry to go behind some barn and blow his brains out. Lord Wellington offered much the same advice. These were the King’s flags that the royal hand had personally touched.

In the novel I, Claudius and its sequel Claudius the God, the Romans responded to the Teutoburger Wald disaster by launching punitive raids under Germanicus that were also intended to recover the lost eagles. He got 2 of them before Tiberius recalled him. His brother Claudius figured out where the last was and sent an army to recover it. They did.

One wonders how the British army ever got on with so much dissent and so many villainous characters in its ranks.

Strict discipline to the point of where soldiers are afraid of their superiors ala the Roman Legions, and directing the pent up villainy at a bothersome opponent on a regular basis; an added advantage of which is the culling of a good percentage of the the low-lives populating the ranks.

In “Sharpe’s Trafalgar”, Sharpe is saying goodbye to India. He is forced to pay his own way back as the Company which brought him to India, will not pay for his return-passage to England. As he is not supposed to have any money, although he is in fact fabulously wealthy after taking the jewels of Tippoo, he books his voyage to England in steerage on a Company ship.

Because of the danger of French war ships, Company ships sail in convoys which means they move slowly, but safely back to Great Britain. Unfortunately for Sharpe, the captain of the vessel Sharpe is on turns out to be a traitor and arranges a rendezvous with a notorious French ship which then captures the Company vessel. The French captain takes the traitor, and those who helped him, on board and sends the Company vessel, now maned by a few French sailors, on to Mauritius.

Luckily for Sharpe and Co, they are intercepted by a British Man-O-War, captained by someone Sharpe has helped in the past. The Brits recapture the Company ship, take Sharpe, a British Lord and his wife on board the Man-O-War and send the Indiaman on to Capetown.

The British captain is hell-bent on capturing the French vessel and those who helped betray the vessel to the French. He has not seen the vessel, but surmises that the French captain will be returning to Europe, thus the English captain sails West guessing the route the French captain will take.

A long-distant chase ensues which appears to be ending with the French making Cadiz before the English can reach them. But then the French vessel is forced to change course due to an English frigate which is being used as a scout for what turns out to be the combined English Fleet. Yes, we are off Trafalgar.

Soon thereafter, Sharpe meets Lord Nelson and is duly inspired by him. Nelson treats Sharpe completely differently than the way Wellesley has treated him, and Sharpe can see why his sailors love the Admiral.

The Battle of Trafalgar takes place and Sharpe, who has been drilling with British Marines during his time afloat, fights like a devil. In the end, the Brits win, the traitors who arranged the capture of the Indiaman get their just deserts and Sharpe gets back some of his jewels, which were stolen from him.

“Sharpe’s Tragalgar” was a good read, but it was the weakest of the three Sharpe’s book I have read.

I am not sure why this is. Although it is historically the fourth book in the series, it was in fact written in 2000, long after the first Sharpe book written in 1981. Sometimes writers run into droughts when dealing with series-books.

I also find the story line about Sharpe’s love affair afloat with a British aristocratic lady to be a real stretch. The idea that such an affair could be kept from others on a voyage of many months is absurd and suggesting that Sharpe thought this to be possible, at least for the first part of the affair, strains credulity.

To my mind, the best part of the book is contained in about 20 pages starting around page 200. It is in these pages the one reads about Nelson and how his colleagues and men loved him. To these sailors, Nelson is infallible. A couple of lines sum up Nelson’s stature to these men. These lines come in a scene just before the start of the battle where Chase, the captain who has befriended Sharpe,

“…took a prayer book from his pocket and leafed through its pages, seeking the Prayer to Be Said Before a Fight at Sea Against Any Enemy. He was not an outwardly religious man, but the captain had a blithe faith in God that was almost as strong as his trust in Nelson.”

Wonderful writing.

In case there was any doubt, this book shows that Sharpe is anything but a good man. He lets his passions get the better of him and does not hesitate to wrong others even though his immoral actions are the source of his troubles.

I think Sharpe may be the most vicious anti-hero I have encountered in my years of reading.

That being said, Bernard Cornwell has created, in Sharpe, a wonderful vehicle for weaving wonderful stories about English History and the Duke of Wellington, in particular.

In each book of the Sharpe series, Cornwell includes a “Historical Note.” In this book’s note, he writes something which few have known and most have forgotten, what a shame.

“Nelson, more than any man, imposed Britain on the nineteenth-century world.”

“Rule, Britannia!” was written as a poem by James Thomson, a Scot. It was later put to music, and the lyrics of the chorus slightly altered. The second “Britannia” was added, and the “shall” was changed to “will”.

I rather liked that notion that Chase had a higher faith in God than in anything or anyone else — except for Nelson.

It definitely sounds like Cornwell was inspired by Fraser’s Flashman’s books, many of which I’m pretty sure were out before any of the Sharpe books. (The only real Sharpe I can think of now is the tragic Morrow housemaid Violet Sharpe, driven by police pressure to suicide in 1932.)

I am pretty sure Cornwell, at the very least, had Flashman in the back of his mind as he wrote the Sharpe series. But Sharpe is a serious character and can sometimes be heroic, true and fair. But he is merciless to those who cross him, even if they can only cross him because of his own sins.

There are plenty of books on sailing in that era, including at least one non-fiction book (Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Dana Jr., about his experience as a common crewman for 2 years, which I read as a child) as well as a large array of fictional works. These tend to be well-researched in many cases. But I don’t recall anything which took a serious look at what it was like for a passenger.

Mr. Kung, I watched about the first half of the third in the TV series, “Sharpe’s Company.” It’s pretty good so far. Returning (I think he’s the guy from the book, “Sharpe’s Tiger” who loves tormenting soldiers) is the character of Hakeswill. He’s played to nasty brilliance by Peter Postlethwaite (“Brassed Off,” 1990’s “Treasure Island,” “Alien 3,” “Dragonheart,” “The Lost World,” and even an episode of “Lovejoy.”) I’m sure you know him and what a brilliant match for this character.

I also ran into for the first time Sharpe’s three rules. I’m not trying to impress you with my memory because it’s not very good anyway. But it went something like this:

1) Fight as hard as you can in battle

2) Don’t get drunk unless I tell you to.

3) Don’t steal from anyone but the enemy or unless you’re starving

In this one, the British are laying siege to two major cities/forts in Spain. Politics enters this as much as military strategy. The result is that Sharpe has at least temporarily been demoted to lieutenant. And it appears that his special cache of men has been all but disbanded. The next target for siege is Badajoz. Casualties are again expected to be heavy. And Sharpe has tried to make a firm deal with a superior that if he is over the wall first, he will get a promotion that cannot be taken away from him. And that’s about where I left it.

Speaking of hardship onboard ships, I was reading/skimming a book last night that I had check out of the virtual library: Off the Deep End: A History of Madness as Sea. Told from a progressive/atheistic slant, it can be annoying at times. Also, some chapters tend to ramble on. But there are some good accounts of individual tragedies at sea as well as some overall stats/opinions about why, for example, the rate of mental illness for British sailors was about ten times the normal on land.

One of the theories was a simple as combining drunkenness (the sailors indeed seemed to have a rather large daily ration of alcohol) combined with hitting their heads on the low beam inside the ship. A plausible theory, on the face of it, but a bit speculative.

Less speculative is the certainty that one reason mental illness tended to be rampant onboard ships of all kinds is that many counties or cities in England (or elsewhere) were looking to dump their mentally ill dependents on someone else (America, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, etc.) New laws were coming on requiring municipalities to take better care of such people.

There are many harrowing tales of cannibalism, of course, which was generally an accepted practice. Even killing people for food as a last resort wasn’t necessarily widely frowned upon apparently. But it did become an issue in the courts eventually and thus was legally frowned upon at some point. Steamships and modern forms of communication basically made long-term trials at sea fairly rare so cannibalism became a moot point.

There are some tails of bad captains. I didn’t know that Vancouver was generally considered quite a monster. And Captain Bligh, in the schemes of things, is thought to have been no better or worse than average and it may have been Fletcher Christian who momentarily went off his rocker. Again, makes for interesting reading, but some of this informed speculation may be little better than speculation.

The siege of Badajoz was interesting. Wellington forced a breach in its wall, and launched a full assault — the main attack at the breach (which was well defended and needed a well-supported attack) as well as a couple of diversionary attempts to climb the walls. As it happens, the breach held — but the French didn’t defend the walls and that’s how the British broke in.

As was usual in such cases, the British sacked the town, which means lots of rape and looting. One of their officers, Harry Smith, rescued a Spanish woman and ended up marrying her. He later would end up as governor of Cape Colony. South African cities were named after both — Harrismith and Ladysmith. You can look up the latter to find out why the link to the siege of Badajoz is so appropriate.

It will be interesting to see how much detail this episode goes into regarding the siege of Badajoz. I expect not much.

Interesting also that Captain Hastings is now playing the role of Wellington. Another notable actor is in this episode: Clive Francis. He’s played in many things, but I certainly remember him from the current excellent Netflix series, “The Crown.” He’s appeared in “Yes, Prime Minister,” the “lodger” in “A Clockwork Orange,” and a whole lot of prominent British TV miniseries and shows.

Clive Francis also plays Tommy Traddles in the 1966 series David Copperfield. I couldn’t get far into the book without being bored. (Sacrilege, I know.) Maybe this series will work for me.

Sadly, I just read that of the original 12 episodes of the 1966 production, only 3 remain. Oh, well. But BritBox does have the 1999 production with some big names such as Ian McKellen, Bob Hoskins, Tom Wilkinson, Colin Farrell, and Maggie Smith. Ciarán McMenamin plays Copperfield and the young version (this could be annoying, but it might be a short part) is played by Harry Potter.

Bean’s performance continues to be Oscar-worthy. And with the improvement of the cast (although I consider Captains Hastings as Wellington a step down), the third episode is maintaining the level of quality achieved in the second.

the rate of mental illness for British sailors was about ten times the normal on land.

One wonders where they obtained the numbers to make this assertion. An order of magnitude higher occurrence of mental cases would seem to be improbable, at least to me.

Still, I can believe that the incidence of mental illness among British Tars was higher than the typical citizen.

Alcohol was a likely contributor to the problem, but I do wonder about the low-beam idea. British sailors were not known for being tall.

I would suspect that the Royal Navy’s recruiting method had more to do with it, i.e. impressing the scum in public houses in harbours would not likely result in the highest quality of sailor.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if the incredibly crowded conditions on board a vessel helped drive people a bit mad. I think most sailors had a hammock with a space of about 15 inches between hammocks.

Finally, if I recall correctly, sailors did not get much chance to sleep 6-7 hours at a time due to the bells system of keeping time/performing one’s duties on a ship. I think a sailor might get something like four hours sleep at a time. This would drive me mad, for sure.

I have no idea. I don’t doubt it’s higher than the landlubbers. Some interesting mental issues were described that I had never heard of. Again, taking the book as gospel it notes a phenomenon (in very hot regions) were people would go delusional and jump off the ship, seemingly thinking there was a lush wooded field or whatever that they were seeing. I’d not heard of this phenomenon.

What certainly seems quite credible is that normal people (Pringle Stokes, Robert Fitzroy — both captains of MHS Beagle) could be driven to a mental breakdown by the pressure of command combined with the truly horrendous and constant miserable conditions in and around Tierra del Fuego.

There are some interesting descriptions of an optical effect whereby objects over the horizon are seen above the surface of the water, often inverted, but not always. This is thought to have given rise to the legend of The Flying Dutchman. This is apparently so common in the Strait of Messina that they even have a name for it: Fata Morgana. There are some samples of that at the Wiki page.

Another amazing point, if true, is that there was a known cure (or preventative) or scurvy which the Royal Navy basically ignored for decades.

14 inches for hammock spacing was considered generous, at least according to this book. The book goes into very plausible reasons for going a bit cuckoo onboard a ship: Bad food, the rolling of the deck (and general disorienting effect on the body being at sea), rats and pests of all type, lack of sleep (as you noted), too cold, too hot, and the air never being particularly fresh. And that’s just for passenger ships. Add to war ships the stress of whipping, war, etc.

At the same time, the author notes (then, but probably more so now) what was considered the therapeutic effect of getting out to sea. Even some of the survivors of the worst tragedies (such as with The Essex), often went back to sea, and not just for a living (which most probably needed to do, having no other skills) but for pleasure on their own time, in their own small boats.

It’s also possible that madness on land is underestimated. How many lowest-class sorts would be checked for it? But it would be noticed at sea.

There were various ways of trying to prevent scurvy, not all of which actually worked. The consumption of fresh fruit (especially citrus) was one, but but proved inconvenient on long voyages until they started using lime juice in grog, which was officially started in 1795 but no doubt done by some captains earlier. One way Blight tried to deal with it on the Bounty was dehydrated soup; he also stocked up on sauerkraut, which probably worked pretty well. He certainly didn’t have a scurvy outbreak on the voyage.

Bligh may then have been one of the more thoughtful captains if he stored sauerkraut to ward off scurvy. His lashes-per-sailor was something like 1.5 which was average to low, I guess.

But think about if you’re in charge of a ship or a fleet. If the losses from scurvy are huge (and apparently they were), there’s something going on beyond mere negligence. But then considering how little regard the Admiralty had for the common sailor, many probably just didn’t care and/or thought about them as “surplus population”. But any rational response (let alone a humane one) was to keep ships fully operational with a full compliment of healthy crew. One can only suppose that Great Britain’s competition wasn’t much better.

Yes, sauerkraut was probably as good a choice as any for a long-term voyage. The dehydrated soup, as I recall, was mainly mixed vegetables, so it probably had some value as well. He also got fresh fruit when he could, buying it in places like the Canary islands.

Richard Hough discusses these efforts in Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian, in which he also covers Bligh’s voyage back to civilization (as I recall, no one died) and the fate of those who went to Pitcairn.

Hough sees Bligh as superb in difficult circumstances, though he had his flaws (he never would have believed, much less accepted blame, but he may have caused Captain Cook’s murder by firing on the Hawaiians from the ship when he thought the situation was getting dangerous). In particular, Hough thinks he was soft when things got easy, such as failing to work his crew at Tahiti. When they suddenly got restored to Navy discipline after leaving there, things broke down quickly.

I had the feeling something like that might be the case. In “Sharpe’s Company,” it’s also revealed that he has a newborn daughter. She’s in the city they will soon be besieging. His girl has run off ahead to take her (and the child’s guardians) out in time. Her name, I think, is Antonia.

I just checked out “scurvy” in wikipedia, and the history provides a good discussion of anti-scorbutics through history. The utility of fresh citrus fruits was well-known to the Spanish, who had plenty of oranges and lemons and plenty of ports to supply them all over the world. But various other things were also discovered, and there were various complications — full cooking could destroy the vitamim C. Copper could destroy the ability of absorbing it. (One result, ironically, is that the lime juice used in the Royal Navy because it was more easily available than other citrus fruits was nearly worthless.)

The French learned that fresh, lightly cooked horse meat worked (especially organ meats). Robert Scott made a similar discovery about freshly killed seals. The Royal Navy started using fresh citrus long before the orthodox physicians believed that would work, which is why this didn’t become official until 1795. (In other words, the problem was the scientists, not the naval officers.)

I finished the third episode of the Sharpe series: “Sharpe’s Company.”

There is at least some detail regarding the siege of Badajoz. They show the British steadily blasting a hole in the city’s walls. Carnage then ensues. The plot falls apart as the writers work especially hard to give free reign to Hakeswill’s villainy. Neither this plot nor the various little dramas surrounding the siege make a lot of sense. It bounces all over and it’s frankly a bit of a bore.

They had no less than 3 opportunities to kill Hakeswill throughout this but, of course, he escapes in the end. He’ll return in the next episode, “Sharpe’s Enemy,” and then no more appearances. After the first 15 minutes or so, this became a very disappointing episode. Bean was pretty good, but not as good as usual if only because there wasn’t much material to work with. Yes, he gets in the face of Hakeswill a couple of times and shouts a lot. But other than that, the all acted as if this guy wasn’t a danger. And, of course, Hakeswill sets up Harper. And Harper takes the lashes but he makes no attempt to retaliate in kind, even with a ranking officer on his side.

There was just a sense to this episode that it was pieced together from various shots from more than one film crew without the care or desire to tell a story. It felt paper thin, like eating sawdust.

I suspect one problem they had was that they didn’t want to show the sack of Badajoz — a Spanish city, after all, when Britain was allied with Spain, or at least its people. Did they at least show the capture of the city by diversionary attacks over the walls?

Finished “Sharpe’s Triumph” which is the second book of the Sharpe series.

It deals with Sir Arthur Wellesley’s first major victory which took place at the Battle of Assaye.

Like all the Sharpe books, Cornwell does a good job giving the reader an idea of the conditions under which the Brits lived in India at the turn of the nineteenth century.

The book introduces the East India Company officer, William Dodd, who sold his services to the enemies of the Company. He is a wonderfully evil and monstrously ambitious man.

Sargent Hakeswill is also back. Since I did not read the books in order, this is the third book in which the Sargent has appeared. He is an odious man, but after the third book, he is beginning to seem a caricature. In each book he lays traps for Sharpe, and in each book, Sharpe avoids the snare and punishes Hakeswill.

In the first book, Sharpe throws Hakeswill in a tiger pit. We find out in the second book that the tigers had just been fed, so Hakeswill escapes with his life.

In the second book, Sharpe throws Hakeswill in an enclosure with an elephant which has been used to crush people with its foot.

In the third book, we find out that Hakeswill has somehow eluded the elephant’s foot and is still after Sharpe. Again, Sharpe triumph’s and throws Hakewill into a snake pit.

I was sure that was the end of Hakeswill, but I see from Brad that Hakeswill turns up in some battle in Europe, trying to get Sharpe as usual.

Apparently, Cornwell expressed regret when he finally killed off Hakeswill. I can’t agree with him. I wish he had done it sooner.

Actually, I suspect every time he “killed” Hakeswill, he meant it. Then, for some reason, he would decide he needed to revive him. You’ll recall that Doyle did this for Holmes after visiting Reichenbach Falls and getting inspired there. The funny thing is that, as he noted in a piece that came out a few years later, he could write plenty of stories set before then. The Hound of the Baskervilles was set before then, and at least a few later stories seem to have been. “The Adventure of the Dying Detective”, set when Watson wasn’t with Holmes, almost certainly was.

A little Hakeswill goes a long way. The author was obviously attached to the character. Persistent and consistent characters are what a series of novels are all about. You follow their lives. You get to know certain personalities like old friends. The surroundings are familiar.

The problem with Hakeswill was that he was like a boat anchor. Instead of acting like an “old friend” (or even an old villain), he chained an otherwise dynamic story to him and would not let it move on. As a one-dimensional villain, he was good. But it’s like a simple knock-knock joke that you’ve heard before: funny the first time, but not thereafter.

I liked Q the first time or two in “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” But after that I was pretty sure he was not a function of the sci-fi writers but of fan mail. You can’t fault a show necessarily for trying to appeal to its fan base. But you see how “fan mail” characters time after time ruin a series. My philosophy is simple and functional: Instead of going over the same ground again and again, use that same talent you used to come up with an interesting villain (and it’s almost always a villain) and create a new one.

Is Cromwell seriously trying to tell us that there were no other colorful sergeants who were hard on his own men in a villainous way or in some other way? Spread out the villainy. Give us some variety.

Moriarty could have easily been overused in the Holmes series. But he wasn’t. Often he was referred to as a dark backdrop: “Could this be the work of master criminal Moriarty?” And even when it was, credit Conan Doyle for still mixing it up. In “The Adventure of the Empty House” we have Holmes engaged with Moriarty by proxy, the murderous and extremely dangerous Colonel Moran.

I sit here almost dreading the next Sharpe TV episode because the next one (thankfully, the last) includes Hakeswill.

I recall that the Granada series somewhat combined “The Final Problem” with a previous story (I think it was “The Red-Headed League”, but I’m not absolutely sure). Moriarty made a brief appearance at the end of the first story as someone angry at the plan’s failure, thus suggesting what led him to start targeting Holmes.

“The Mazarin Stone” was apparently based on a play in which the villain was Sebastian Moran, who most likely would have escaped the death penalty for his unsuccessful attempt on Holmes. (Proving him guilty of an actual murder would have been much harder than the attempted murder charge.) “His Last Bow” has a reference to “the living Colonel Sebastian Moran”, so it would be possible.

Michael Dunn played Dr. Miguelito Loveless 10 times on The Wild, Wild West, including 8 times in the first 2 seasons. His henchgirl Antoinette was in the first 6. The only other villain to appear more than once was Count Manzeppi (Victor Buono).

I think they wore out the Dr. Loveless character. Some of their best episodes featured quite less dramatic villains, although Loveless was good for 2 or 3 of them. After that, I remember rolling my eyes even as a kid and thinking: “Geez…can’t they come up with something new?” Loveless grew completely tiresome as a character.

I liked the bulk of the Loveless episodes, but there were a few I could have done without. The final one was pretty decent, but the third year episode was mediocre. I also don’t know why Phoebe Dorin (who was Michael Dunn’s actual singing partner) stopped appearing. I liked Antoinette, and as a henchgirl she could have appeared in every Loveless episode.

Dr. Loveless and Count Manzeppi weren’t captured, which enabled them to re-appear. I recall at least 2 others who escaped (Ida Lupino’s Dr. Faustina and Agnes Moorehead’s Emma Valentime) and could have returned, but didn’t. (I would have liked seeing Dr. Faustina again, I think.)

It certainly does. One grows tired of his violently twitching face, hearing about his being hanged as a child and him constantly saying “says so in the scriptures” for justifying his latest crime.

I have a similar beef with Lawrence Sanders’ McNally books. In every one of them, the readers is subjected to the same old foibles, habits, dress habits and general history of each of the main characters. I suppose this is an easy way to fill up pages.

Moriarty could have easily been overused in the Holmes series. But he wasn’t.

In every one of them, the readers is subjected to the same old foibles, habits, dress habits and general history of each of the main characters.

Mr. Kung, several weeks ago I read an article about “The Top Ten Things Writers Should Avoid.” I don’t have that list handy if only because elements of the list were quite feeble in my opinion.

But one of the “don’t do’s” was just what you described. I think writers see this technique so often that they just suppose it is necessary. I recall that “don’ts” list mentioning that good writers (and he named a few names) will paint the picture of a character as you go along instead of dumping it all in a paragraph as if from a big hydraulic truck. I couldn’t agree more.

I totally agree about “Show, don’t tell.” In fact, your humble tyrannically editor never quits fussing about the rationale of the new approach of avoiding the maelstrom of The Daily Drama.

If someone wants to show how mean and dastardly the Left is, I’ll print a 1000 of their articles. But show us, don’t just tell us. That is, be a reporter rather than a glorified armchair quarterback who complains in endless theoretical detail. Reporting was always the essence of my two primary rules for having a political article published (with a couple exceptions…I pretty much give Selwyn a pass because he’s not boring):

1) Tell us what you are doing to combat the Left.

2) Tell us about what someone else is doing to combat the Left.

The other essence, of course, was doing something. Do. Report. Report. Do.

Luckily since instituting these rules, despite losing some readers and content providers, I have not had to sell my private jet. I almost feel bad for Glenn. And yet he’s pretty much the essence of The Daily Drama. He’s made a lot of money from it. Ben Shapiro is the new rising star in this regard. And I can’t stand to listen to the man even if, technically, he makes a lot of good points. It’s like listening to a blender hit a piece of walnut shell.

The novel takes place after Sharpe has arrived back in England from India via the Battle of Trafalgar. He and his aristocratic lover, Grace, who he met on the voyage from India, have scandalized society. Sharpe has cashed in the jewels he took from Tippoo Sultan and bought an estate which he has put in Grace’s name for her security.

Unfortunately for Sharpe, Grace has died after giving birth to their child. The child also died and because the family claims the child is the child of Grace’s dead husband, not Sharpe, the estate passes from Grace to child to her dead husband’s family. Easy come, easy go.

Poor Sharpe is left penniless. He decides to sell his lieutenancy, but cannot as it was given to him as a field promotion, i.e. not purchased.

He decides to revisit his childhood haunts, where he ends up killing one of his foundling home torturers and running away to an inn which serves the military. There he encounters Sir David Baird, who he fought with in India. It turns out Baird has been looking for Sharpe as he needs someone to accompany another officer who is commissioned to go to Denmark and bribe the Danish Crown Prince to turn over the Danish fleet to great Britain.

To this point in the book there have already been a number of very dramatic scenes, but it gets better once Sharpe and the man he accompanies land on Danish soil.

Once again Cornwell delivers the goods. “Sharpe’s Prey” covers the 1807 war against Denmark, a war about which I knew nothing. The war is precipitated by the treaty of Tilsit between Napoleon and Tsar Alexander of Russia. One of the secret clauses of this treaty agrees that the French could take over the Danish fleet, the only sizable fleet available to the French after their disastrous defeat at Trafalger. The Brits will do anything to prevent this.

“Sharpe’s Prey” is shorter than the other Sharpe’s novels which I have read. It is about 250 pages, all which turn themselves.

There had previously been a British attack on Copenhagen that took out the Danish navy and created a phrase that would later be resurrected by Jackie Fisher when he suggested that they Copenhagen the Kaiser’s growing navy shortly before the Great War. Nelson was in a subordinate role, and famously turned his blind eye to the command not to attack. I do vaguely reading that there was a second attack around this time, and for the same reason.

I knew of the earlier attack, but do not recall ever reading about the 1807 expedition.

Cornwell wrote in his historical notes that the Brits remember the 1801 campaign, but the Danish remember the 1807 campaign due to the great damage and loss of life which resulted from the Brits bombarding the city while women and children were still in it. Apparently, this was the equivalent of bombing cities in WWII, unheard of till it happened.

This makes sense. I’m pretty sure the 1801 attack was purely a naval action, the destruction of the fleet being the goal. Ships would also fight it out with forts, which remained the case for a long time — the first naval action of the Great War involved Austro-Hungarian river monitors bombarding Serbian forts at Belgrade.

Just finished “Sharpe’s Rifles”, the 6th book in Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series.

The book takes place in 1809 in Galacia, northwest Spain, after a loss by British and Spanish forces against those of the French.

During the retreat, Sharpe’s company is attacked by French cavalry and loses its major and captain, leaving Sharpe in command. Having been promoted from the ranks, Sharpe is not held in high regard by his subordinates and ends up in a fight to determine which way the remaining company will go.

The fight is interrupted by a Spanish major and his men. He offers to guide Sharpe and his company west so they my eventually find the right road south to Lisbon.

The major is carrying a mysterious chest with him, which he is protecting with his and the lives of all under his command. That the box is worth this attention is shown by the fact that Napoleon has sent a cavalry regiment, under a ruthless colonel, to capture the box and bring it back to Paris.

What is in the box and what happens to it, develops into the major theme of the book.

Like all of Cornwell’s “Sharpe” series, this book is well written, but one can tell that he wrote this earlier than the previous five books which I have read, so far. Sharpe’s character is not as well defined in this book as in the previous ones. And the Sharpe one encounters in the first five novels is a more mature man than the Sharpe in “Sharpe’s Riffles”, even though he is considerably older in the later book.

I guess this is to be expected when an author has to write new books to fill in the back-story of a character he never imagined would turn out so popular.

Brad reviewed the TV version. You might want to compare the two, since he gave a good description (which I remembered well enough to check for it).

That’s Galicia, not Galacia. Same spelling as the Habsburg crownland in Poland. This would have been during or after Sir John Moore’s retreat to Corruna, and I doubt Sharpe would have preferred legging it to Lisbon, unless he somehow missed his ride back from Corruna. Getting past the French, who occupied most of Spain as well as Portugal north of the Douro/Duero, would have been no picnic.

While reading the book, I did a little checking on Galicia as it is an area about which I know little.

Imagine my surprise to learn that the first medieval European kingdom was established in Galicia in 411, when the Suebi took over the area as allies of the Roman Empire. Perhaps this is one of the reasons my old history professor said the crustiest aristocracies in Europe were the Spanish and Hungarian. It might also be the case, because both had century-long battles with Muslims.

Incidentally, at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, the Prime Minister of Spain was Santiago Casares Quiroga (the target of Jose Calvo Sotelo’s comparison to Kerensky and Karolyi in a key debate), head of a party supporting autonomy for Galicia (needed to get decent train service, according to High Thomas). Another important native was one Francisco Franco Bahamonde.

You were mentioning to me offline, Mr, Kung, that Sharpe was a much darker character in the books. In the TV series (so far) he is quite a virtuous character amongst various villains (on both sides of the war).

I rather like this TV version of Sharpe. He’s not all that much different from Boromir. A good chap who might sometimes go a little off the rails, but you definitely want him fighting on your side.

In “Sharpe’s Rifles” Sharpe’s dark side is not as apparent. Again, I find this interesting as the book was written in 1988, whereas the other books I have read were written in the late 1990’s and 2000’s. Clearly, Cornwell developed the character as he went a long and the Sharpe in the Indian books is a more mature man, although he is supposed to be younger, than the Sharpe in “Sharpe’s Rifles.”

I’ve read a couple devastating reviews of the latest comic book movie, Infinity War….over at NRO of all places, including this one by Armond White. And I read on Drudge the other day that there is a glut of comic book movies with 14 coming in 2019.

What does this have to do with Sean Bean and Sharpe? Well, I suppose it’s remarkable that (so far) the TV series has played him more as a good guy (if rough and tumble) hero rather than a morally ambiguous one which is all the rage these days. According to Mr. Kung, Sharpe has done some bad things in the book. Having not read the books, I’m not sure if the literary Sharpe is a self-conscious attempt by the author to follow this trend or if he’s just inserting a little harsh reality into the character. The good guys in such a setting as the British Army in foreign lands might have been few and far between. It may have been quite difficulty to be a good guy and stay alive.

So it’s interesting to read that Sharpe (in the books) was a more mature man when he was younger. I wonder if Cornwell, perhaps unconsciously, was chasing a few of these trends — trends which have culminated in a plethora of comic book movies made for adults which are increasingly devoid of any cinematic virtuous element. (Even as a juvenile my own appetite was for far richer stories. That adults flock to this garbage is amazing.)

I haven’t seen or read any of this, but as a Tolkien fan I find that comparison to Boromir very appropriate. His besetting flaw was his ambition, but he was an excellent warrior and killed a lot of orcs before they finally got him — mainly with arrows.

I’ll find it difficult to ever separate the Boromir character from Sean Bean. They go good together. His ambition was certainly subverted to bad things by The Ring. Sméagol was instantly turned to murder by it.

One of the real cop-outs by Tolkien in this supposedly Christian-themed story is that the ring was not a temptation. It was all-powerful. There was very little choice involved as to whether to do its bidding or not. I’m therefore not sure if there is an analogy to The Ring in the real world. Maybe drugs, after having made the choice to take them (with an all-consuming Ring-like addiction naturally following).

But few would say that The Lord of the Rings was about drug addiction. In fact, I think it’s vastly over-rated as to meaning. In the end, I think most people (including myself) like it because of the fellowship aspect. It’s a glorified buddy-buddy movie/book with a few monsters thrown in. It is action/adventure, and a good one. But The Ring always stood out to me as one of your very large McGuffins.

After successfully leading his riflemen from behind enemy lines in “Sharpe’s Rifles”, Richard has been put into the service of Captain Hogan in “Sharpe’s Havoc.”

Hogan, has been mapping northern Portugal for the British army and acting as something of a spy for Wellesley who is back in England.

As the novel opens, the French are about to take Oporto in northern Portugal and the British are withdrawing. Captain Hogan orders Sharpe to proceed to a specific place in order to rescue and return a young English woman, Kate, to her mother, the widow of a wealthy wine merchant. When given these orders, he is also told to keep an eye on a certain Colonel Christopher, who is somehow befriended to the family.

In the event, the colonel orders Sharpe and his men to depart and get to the south side of the river. Sharpe follows his orders, but the bridge across the Duoro is destroyed before Sharpe and his men can get across. Sharpe then moves east in hopes of finding another bridge or boats to get his men away from the French forces. On the way, he runs into a young Portuguese officer, Vincente, and his men, who help Sharpe and his company out of a tight spot.

Sadly, the French have burnt all the boats and Sharpe and Co are forced to head in the direction of the location where Captain Hogan had originally ordered Sharpe pursue and rescue Kate. By the time Sharpe arrives, Kate has gone through a wedding ceremony (with the corrupt Colonel Christopher), which unbeknownst to her, is not valid.

From that point onward, the book deals with the traitor Christopher trying to play two sides against the middle in order to gain wealth and power, whoever wins.

Christopher is only the most pronounced of a certain type which starts showing up in the Sharpe books after Sharpe leaves India. These types are all looking for the main chance and tend to believe Napoleon and the French will, sooner or later, be victorious against Great Britain and the rest of Europe. Since the French will then have the power, these Brits want to be on the right side of history and profit from France’s glory.

One thing which ties these opportunists together is that they all talk about the way France and Napoleon are sweeping away the old ways and superstitions i.e. religion, which have held mankind back. Their new god is “reason” and efficiency and a united Europe is their goal. Of course, they are the ones with the intelligence and education to determine what is reasonable and desirable. These types are still with us, but they were something relatively new and strange in 1809 as they had arisen out of the French Revolution.

Napoleon was just the first of several tyrants who dreamt of a “United Europe” run in an efficient and reasonable way. The Nazis, and Soviets also tried this, but failed. The EU is run by those of a similar mindset.

“Sharpe’s Havoc” is another good read by Bernard Cornwell, which gives the reader a wonderful idea of the history of that time and place. At 300 pages, it can be read in a few quiet hours, and will take the reader back to the important events which took place in northern Portugal in 1809.

P.S. As I had hoped, it appears that Sharpe is developing into a somewhat more moral man as time goes on.

I believe this sort of anti-religious “reason” came in with the Enlightenment. The French culture was more influenced by this (think of Diderot, Montesquieu, and to some extent Rousseau) than the British (aside from Hume, they seemed to keep some degree of religion) or the rest of Europe. The revolutionaries were mostly middle-class educated people, very much followers of the philosophes.

I believe this sort of anti-religious “reason” came in with the Enlightenment. The French culture was more influenced by this (think of Diderot, Montesquieu, and to some extent Rousseau) than the British

Yes, the French “Enlightenment” philosophers seem to have begun the big leftist push, particularly against the Catholic Church. Interestingly, this impulse was picked up, expanded and intensified by Central and then Eastern European Jews.

Napoleon was just the first of several tyrants who dreamt of a “United Europe” run in an efficient and reasonable way. The Nazis, and Soviets also tried this, but failed. The EU is run by those of a similar mindset.

One can have some minor sympathies for the people who groaned for centuries under a religious bureaucracy which tended to become what all bureaucracies become: somewhat distant from their original purpose, their new purpose being to secure and extend the bureaucracy for the sake of it.

Ah, but paradise is never that far away in the human mind. Fresh minds dream of wiping the slate clean and ushering in an era governed by “reason” (or Allah or Der Fuhrer or the Workers).

The American Experiment, at its heart, is about how to bring about an overall stable unity in the macro whilst providing in the micro for the inherent and inevitable diversity (the really kind, not the fraudulent PC kind) that is part and parcel of not only the reality of human beings (we are not clones) but the requirements of living free.

Most conservatives understand that “the state of nature” is where no one wants to live. Anarchy or pure tribalism with no higher unifying factor or purpose is a beast. On the other hand, when we try to expunge all tribalism except the one anointed by the State or The Party we might indeed be unified but in order to do so we must be constantly terrorized. And there will be little freedom in such a state.

Somewhere between the naive dreams of libertarians and the darker nightmares of fascists there lies The American Experiment. The evil minions of the Left guessed, intuited, or were self-consciously aware that the path to “fundamental transformation” was to undermine our society’s overall organizing principles, such as family, Christianity, work, personal responsibility, and a plethora of private charities.

Redefining marriage, blurring genders, flooding our country with illegal third-world aliens, promoting atheism, welfare, packing courts with lawless mal-interpreters, dumbing down the culture through a debased education, news, and entertainment industry — these are all key to undermining America’s historic unifying principles. And one can argue, for instance, the merits and demerits of “gay marriage” until you’re blue in the face. But unless one understands the overall context, it’s a useless debate.

This basic philosophy about the West, in general, and America, in particular, are no longer taught. There is now no more context to civic thought for people than immediate tribalism, a situation that works well for the tyrants, bureaucrats, and Marxist revolutionaries.

Had Hitler won the war in Europe, it’s more than possible that after a succession of leaders, the establishment of a functioning bureaucracy, and just the passage of time that the Third Reich in 2018 might not have looked much different form the EU. Both have totalitarian regulatory, financial, and political ends. Certainly their means toward their ends were thankfully different. But there are some who note the irony of a modern Germany holding much more than its share of influence in Europe.

Napoleon, of course, was one of the most successful regulators and bureaucrats ever. He worked tirelessly to micro-manage all aspects of French society when he was their leader. Only his means differed from Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, or even Paul Ryan. And it’s not that this difference in means isn’t vastly important. But it’s chilling to see that the ends of Hitler and those of your modern political leader often aren’t all that different. They view themselves as somewhat omniscient and not only able to run everyone else’s lives but truly believe they should do so.

In a way, this is a consequence of the Enlightenment and its concept of enlightened despotism. At the time, this was theoretically based on the idea that despotism is inevitable, so they might as well get an enlightened one. But at some, perhaps very early, it began to seek it for its own sake, using the enlightenment to justify the despotism. This is certainly the case now.

Incidentally, something similar happened with racism as a justification for slavery. If all mean are indeed created equal, then how can slavery be justified? When some group (which in this case was defined by race) is so inferior in some key way(s) that slavery is justified for their own good.

Christians believe that inside the heart of every man is embedded a desire for the Creator — for the perfect, the divine, the transcendent, the perfectly just and truthful. This pursuit, when correctly understood and ordered, is good and productive.

On the other hand, it is no more complicated than to say that these “Enlightened” impulses are atheistic impulses powered by a utopian earthly ideology inherently munged with the desire for raw power — all marinated in the Secret Sauce of grievance and payback.

All “enlightened” philosophies express, of course, the greatest affinity for one’s fellow man. This turns into the rationalization for abusing man in order to usher in a hoped-for earthly utopia. No penalty toward “reactionary” man (including Christian bakers refusing to bake cakes) is too much. These, after all, are the unenlightened beasts holding back The Perfect Society.

Slavery itself takes no particular political philosophy to institute. It’s the natural state of man’s disposition toward those outside his tribe. But it does take a heapin’ spoonful of moral and political philosophy to state why such a thing should be forbidden.

As always, the easy thing to justify is the coarse and beastly, even if wrapped in nice promises and feel-good rhetoric. The hard thing to do is always to make the argument against acting out in our lowest-common-denominator beastly ways. This is certainly why totalitarian movements are so often powered by yutes. Yutes lack the filters of wisdom and experience and know only their immediate emotional predilections.

Remember, one consequence of the Enlightenment was the American revolution, as well as some of the better opposition arguments — consider Samuel Johnson’s “Why do the loudest yelps for liberty come from the drivers of slaves?” What it means today isn’t what it meant back then, especially outside France.

One can have some minor sympathies for the people who groaned for centuries under a religious bureaucracy which tended to become what all bureaucracies become: somewhat distant from their original purpose, their new purpose being to secure and extend the bureaucracy for the sake of it.

The Catholic Church became the boogey-man of Europe. Those of the “Enlightenment” saw it as the most obscurantist power in Europe. That being the case, it had to be destroyed.

The Church could not be destroyed so France became something of a schizophrenic State with, on the one hand, a very crusty Catholic bureaucracy and peasantry and, on the other, the most unhinged atheists. France got the worst of both worlds.

One consequence of their urban intellectual disengagement from the country is the persistence of royalist revolts in the Vendée. There was even one against Napoleon in 1815 when they hardly had the time to start one.

For what it’s worth, libertinism (often misdiagnosed as “liberalism” or “libertarian”) requires the eradication of a higher moral authority — as do any atheistic regimes. Some totalitarian regimes (Islam) use God as an excuse to be beastly.

I’m still working my way through another viewing of the Cadfael series. What is clear (and is clear to any reasonable Catholic or Protestant) is that man’s fallen nature is not magically erased by participating in religion. Indeed, for revolutionaries, the fact that there are sinners within the church (and never apparently within their own ranks) is all the justification needed to take the Marxist/”Enlightened” wrecking-ball to it.

Then begins this bizarre and beastly little game that must be played, for when the Good is delegitimized then the Bad (and even the Ugly) must be rationalized constantly. This is when the truth becomes subversive.